A new glimmer of hope for the victims of crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge
regime in Cambodia: on 21 January 2009, the French Cour de Cassation re-opened
legal proceedings concerning acts of torture committed in Cambodia between 1975
and 1979. The Cour de Cassation recognizes that the French courts have
jurisdiction to prosecute such crimes, and has overturned the unfavourable
ruling made in 2007 by the Paris Court of Appeal.
It comes almost ten years after the filing of a complaint by Mrs.Billon Ung
Boun Hor for acts committed in April 1975 against her husband, then president
of the National Assembly of Cambodia. Having found refuge in the French Embassy
in Phnom Penh, he was forced to leave with representatives of the new
"Democratic Kampuchea", before disappearing ... This case illustrates the
serious crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge regime.
The FIDH and the French League for Human Rights are civil parties and also
support Mrs. Billon Ung Boun Hor.